I've owned three FAL type rifles over the years: a Springfield Armory SAR-48 (sold it and kicked myself afterwards), a DS Tactical carbine, and an Entreprise FAL.
The Entreprise FAL was built with an Imbel kit and the required U.S. parts. It would mis-feed about every 20 or so rounds despite using different magazines and I didn't feel like fooling with it so I traded it to a guy who wanted to get it right.
I paid way too much for the DS carbine back in '07 and my wife pretty much didn't speak to me for about a week. This thing was too little, shooting too much. The recoil and blast was unpleasant, even with the factory fiberglass butt with the soft rubber butt pad. I didn't enjoy shooting it at all. Several good points were that the receiver was made by LMT and it was notched for the clip loading top cover and that it functioned perfectly.
Just before Entreprise was raided by the CA DOJ and the BATF I took the carbine to them to have the short front end pulled off and an Imbel front end installed. The parts were used but in excellent plus condition and were so nice I picked up a spare barrel for about $50. I got the piece back and about a month later they were shut down. Customer guns were impounded too. Yikes!
I later added a Brit sand cut bolt carrier because I like the way it looks. Without corresponding sand channels in the receiver the sand cuts don't do much, not that I'm going to drag it through the sand.
It isn't as accurate as my M1A but it has a soft spot in my heart. Before FALs were widely available here, I traveled to Southern Africa in 1985 for a month and while there visited a gun shop in South Africa. They had used R1s for sale for a very affordable price. I tried every path I could come up with to ship one to the U.S. but it wasn't happening. 3 years after that I owned the SAR-48 and FALs were available in the U.S. Who could have seen that coming? Not me for sure.
